Program Not Responding!

[mscher]

Ok, now how many of you already know what I'm referring to just by reading the above headline?

Windows Mista of course!

It's bad enough I get this regularily my Vista system using with IE and occasionally Word, but my niece just lost a couple of hours of work (I know, she did not save), on her notebook using WORDPAD, the simplest app MS makes! Program Not Responding.

Anyone have any ideas on where to start looking, to start curing this generic lame application error?


I have all of the patches and service packs.

With computers it used to be garbage in garbage out. With Microsoft, it's just garbage out.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Program Not Responding!

The best patch I know is uninstalling Vista and putting on XP.

Or wait for Windows 7.

 

[mscher]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Or wait for Windows 7.

"wait for the next release", is about the saddest phrase in Information Technology. How long did we wait for Vista, which was supposed to be "better"?

People spend some money, or a ton of money on a product that does not work, just so they can spend more money later, on something that may or may not be better.

Microsoft used to be a maverick of innovation. Now they are just another bloated has-been company.

Windows 7 will likely be the same dog, with a flea-bath and a nice grooming.

 

[lowkee]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Jeez, I forgot wordpad still existed. I'm getting that issue with Outlook 2007 currently, and I am on Win 7 - But I also know it is caused by a Kerio mail connector and not Office itself.

From my experience, if it happens to different apps, it is normally none of those apps, but something messing with them (AV, firewall, explorer itself, stuff like that). Next time it happens, start closing everything BUT that frozen app and see if it comes back to life. Just keep track of what you last closed and give it a few seconds to catch up.

Good luck finding it. At worst, it could be bad ram, but that'll be really rare nowadays.

 

[jt185]

Re: Program Not Responding!

I lost the old Windows ball and chain. Bought a Mac and never looked back.

 

[JaSla74]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Not sure where to look for that archaic file (might try application data), but if you've never tried Open Office I highly recommend it. After using for a year plus now I never bothered putting my MS Office suit back on my PC. It has a recovery feature which has come in handy for the Program Not Responding & power loss.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Not sure where to look for that archaic file (might try application data), but if you've never tried Open Office I highly recommend it. After using for a year plus now I never bothered putting my MS Office suit back on my PC. It has a recovery feature which has come in handy for the Program Not Responding & power loss.

Any of the Office (Open, or Microsoft) word processors have a backup file that is refreshed every coupla minutes while working and recoverable. The simple ones don't. The old dos editor UED is my favorite for batch and command line file editing, including Linux scripts if I'm using a windows workstation. It was smart enough to page through a file larger than memory, and also kept a backup file.

 

[gonefishie]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Program not responding is normally caused by the program itself, the pc's inability to handle the work load at that particular time, not the OS. If your pc can't handle a simple program like wordpad, I highly suggest you take a look at what are all the stuffs running in the background. Eliminate the resource hogs, if you can't live without them then upgrade your hardwares.

j martin> don't know about Open Office but Office 2007 does automatically save your work.

 

[v1_0]

Re: Program Not Responding!

I lost the old Windows ball and chain. Bought a Mac and never looked back.

Hahah... Same thing, different company. You've drunk the cool aid, and now see the ball and chain as an "apple feature"...

Maybe you actually believe that the new 20" monitor is an upgrade? (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/01/apple_imac_class_action/)
Who needs all those colors anyway?

Or, perhaps that the OS is secure? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1249 What, security patches! Nah, just removing a couple of features, that... er... allow "remote help and administration", yeah, that's the ticket, of your apple product.

Or maybe Apple doesn't ship major errors - ocasionally they let slip useful features that help users keep their hard drive from filling up http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/snow_leopard_guest_account_wiping_some_home_directories/
This is much better than compression...

Oh, hey! Apple MacOS beats the tar out of linix in market share, must be better. It has 5.12% market share, and linux only has 0.95%!! http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8

No, apple isn't any different than microsoft. Just smaller at this point. (I would say due to their choice to stay proprietary on the hardware back in the day...)

 

[v1_0]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Anyone have any ideas on where to start looking, to start curing this generic lame application error?

The application non responding error means that the program is not responding to the operating system. It may very well be running, off doing something useful even, but just not talking to the OS.

One quick thing is to try to minimize the application, or move it around. There may be some security dialog hidden behind the application that is blocking it.

If you start the task manager, there is a tab for "applications" and a tab for "processes". On the process tab, you can take a look at CPU usage - if you see your application there, using up a lot of CPU, it's definitely doing something. It may be useful, or it could be in some sort of loop just churnin.

If it's using 0% CPU, then chances are it is waiting on some I/O. In vista, the task manager has a "performance" tab that you can go to, and there is a button that brings up the performance monitor.

You can see activity on your disk, network, etc. This may give you some clue as to what the process is doing.

On WinXP, I've used a tool called "process explorer" (www.sysinternals.com - will redirect to a microsoft site, they gobbled up sysinternals), and that will let you look deeper into a process (in your case, wordpad). However, this gives pretty technical information.

 

[gss036]

Re: Program Not Responding!

I just did the Microsoft updates last night before shutting down. There were 15 of them, even with high speed internet it took a while. This morning when I logged in, there was a window that came up telling me about a file that would keep IE from responding, then a a place to check to be able start the IE8 w/o starting that program. After digging around a bit a bit, I figured out the the problem was the SONIC BOOM recorder for DVD and CD's. Now to decide if I want to keep the program.
I no longer use IE8, but Firefox, but, when I did the up date I noticed the IE was being provided my Comcast.
Like the above post said, you need to figure out which one if causing the problem that is interfering with the MS program, probably not a MS product but an add on that is not compatible.

 

[gonefishie]

Re: Program Not Responding!

the problem was the SONIC BOOM recorder for DVD and CD's. Now to decide if I want to keep the program.
.

Couldn't you edit the run registry?

 

[dolluper]

Re: Program Not Responding!

Go to word pad and hit refresh then the BACK button